Friday, April 27, 2012

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

I just read an article about a homeless Naples man who was arrested on FELONY charges for "stealing" a cup of soda at a local McDonald's. REALLY??? This only highlights a growing trend of calousness towards the homeless here in Southwest Florida. I guess we've just gotten a little too hoity-toity down here with our gated communities sheltering us from the real world "out there."

The Lee County Sheriff's Deputies are consistently harassing and tracking drifters on Fort Myers Beach. In fact, I was visiting a restaurant the other day (which shall remain nameless) and while I was visiting with the owner, a homeless drifter came up and asked to use the bathroom. Apparently, he did this every week and the owner didn't mind. But a deputy who'd been following the man approached us and asked the owner if he could arrest the drifter for trespassing. The owner said no and that he had no desire to press charges. After a little persuasion, the owner acquiesced and the homeless man was taken out to a waiting patrol car. One of the wait staff informed me that the owner was "too nice" and would never turn the guy away. All he wanted to do was clean up a bit, as he had spent the previous night on the beach.

Need I remind people that it is our job, as human beings, part of a global community of love, to help our fellow humankind? It's really not that difficult to give a guy your hand and help him to his feet, nor even to wash them.

Monday, April 16, 2012

After attending my second Town Hall Meeting on Fort Myers Beach, I just have to vent. There's an issue before our Town Council that has every tea-toteler and prude on the island up in arms. They are perplexed why our municipal government would even CONSIDER allowing beach businesses to expand the sale and consumption of alcohol onto the beach. At tonight's public hearing on the proposed ordinance, I heard a lot of moralistic grandstanding with terms like "family beach" and "family-friendly island" thrown around as if they were absolute truths with only one possible meaning.

Thankfully, the mayor's wife got up to give an alternate definition to "family time" on the beach. I take my family on the beach all the time and I'd love to enjoy a cocktail or two while out there. Does that somehow make me "family UNfriendly?"

Some of the naysayers lost all grasp of rational thought and began talking about our beach in terms of spring break gone wild, with topless girls splashing into the surf. I've yet to see that happen at the height of spring break and I certainly cannot see how the consumption of alcohol at a beach bar on the beach is going to lead to rampant luciviousness.

What those who throw terms around like "family values" fail to recognize is how many working families on this little island rely on the sale of alcohol at such establishments to make ends meet. That's right, old folks who no longer HAVE to work to make a living, there are families who would actually BENEFIT from expanded alcohol sales on our beach! Families making a living, feeding their children and buying them adequate clothing, those are family values that we should all be able to agree upon.

A patron who takes his/her beverage a few feet onto our sandy shores is not going to be the next star of a Girls Gone Wild video. They might be a mom, dad or even granddad, who is enjoying a tasty beverage with their family at sunset. And there is something morally reprehensible about that??? I just don't get it!

And it's not just working families who will ultimately benefit. Anyone with a vested interest on this island will benefit from increased spending by tourists who come to partake at the establishments who are granted the ability to serve on the beach. Since when is making an honest buck a non-Republican, anti-family value?

I sincerely hope our Town Council puts an end to this madness and votes to approve the new ordinance. The beach businesses deserve to play on a level playing field...tea-totelers be damned!

Sunday, April 15, 2012

This morning, CBS Sunday Morning led off with a story about tax evasion and people cheating on their taxes. Okay, I understand it is April 15th, but I've had my tax return for months now, so why is this a story. The 100th Anniversary of the Titanic disaster is much more compelling to me than the end of tax season and how people "cheat" Uncle Sam. I mean, I didn't hear them talk ONE TIME about all the loopholes that billionaires and corporations use to cheat the system. Instead, they focused on hardworking individuals and questioned their moral character. REALLY???

Look at it from an everyday Joe's perspective. Let's say your Uncle Sam was a financial mess who bummed money off you every year to the tune of thousands. The last you heard about your frivolous uncle was that he was driving down Wall Street just throwing handfulls of one dollar bills out the window of his gas-guzzling H2. Tell me how you'd feel about loaning him an extra $100 next week. Do you think your moral compass would guide you toward your wallet? Or would you tell a white lie that you just didn't have it this week?

Is that really cheating him? Even if the government told you that you HAD to give him the money, I wouldn't think twice if you fudged your way out of it. Now, let's get onto something more interesting CBS. Who's vetting these stories anyway?!?! Where are the feel-good stories that drew us into your program years ago?